Bell Canada hacked: 2m account details swiped by mystery miscreants

Don't worry, no bank card info taken, eh

Bell Canada said Tuesday 1.9 million customer account details were swiped by hackers – although stressed no payment card numbers or passwords were slurped.

The nation's largest telco said it is working with Canadian police to figure out who was responsible for the disclosure of the customer email addresses, and phone numbers and names of another 1,700 people.

"There is no indication that any financial, password or other sensitive personal information was accessed," Bell Canada said in its brief statement on the matter.

"This incident is not connected to the recent global WannaCry malware attacks."

Serving around 21 million customers in the Great White North, Bell Canada offers both fixed line and wireless phone service, as well as internet and television. The carrier reported revenues of $5.38bn CAD ($3.96bn USD) in their last fiscal quarter.

Bell Canada did not say whether the customer details stolen in the attack were pulled from a specific service.

The Canadian Privacy Commissioner's office has said it is also gathering data about the hack.

"We apologize to Bell customers for this situation and are contacting those affected directly," Bell Canada said. "Bell took immediate steps to secure affected systems. The company has been working closely with the RCMP cyber crime unit in its investigation and has informed the Office of the Privacy Commissioner."

This isn't the first time Bell Canada has been tied to privacy concerns. In 2015, the telco was the focus of a privacy investigation over complaints about its use of tracking tools without customer consent. ®